Yeah, but they’re putting that motor into a bunch of different bikes over the next five years. They sold about 1,200 Sportster S bikes so far as well, and it hasn’t been out very long.

I think they’ll do okay on the ROI side of things – that is to say, I don’t think they’ll lose any money on it. But, in terms of revitalizing the brand…I’m not even sure that’s the plan anymore.

Zeitz’s “ReWire/HardWire/WhateverWire” plans have never been clearly communicated. From my vantage point, it looks mostly like they want to go back to business as usual with cruisers, and only decided to keep the non-cruiser models that there were already pot-committed to in the development cycle.

We shall see the stark truth on Monday’s annual report. 250 unit sales of a new flagship platform, that was supposed to bring the brand to a wider audience, in it’s home market ,is not great, even in January.

I’m not hating, just pointing out that to amortize that engine alone they will need to shift 10s of thousands. Is there enough runway left in the big capacity combustion ADV market for a new player with poor product-market fit?

The elephant in the room here isn’t that H-D is aiming to take bitters away from the other brands, it’s that new riders aren’t entering into the industry and buying motorcycles. So it becomes fighting over an ever-shrinking pie.

That’s the real concern.

I heard they sold 250 Pan Americas in January. That’s not a small number of adventure bikes sold in the USA, but it is a small number for a Harley-Davidson model.

Yeah, I don’t know what happened there.

BMW sold 60,000 R1250GS’s globally last year, and a goodly portion were sold here. It is hard to find a new, unsold 2021 GS, but unsold ’21 Pan Americas are in every major city in North America. Right alongside steeply discounted (-40%) 2020 Livewires.

Note the handy charts below to get a fix on the market situation. Record sales years for the luxury motorcycle manufacturers this and most of the past seven years, except for one.

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6ccbd1f7f3b14b921b3ed0d2efbcf8332bbaa5c8e4b8c6c5f25744c109288be.jpg

Personally, the Pan-Am model has made me consider venturing into H-D as an alternative to my current brand of ADV. Surprisingly, it also arose my curiosity in customs and cruisers (although recent tests on Indian’s may see them lose that sale).

My opinion and potential to buy has definitely been increased from H-D’s recent efforts. I am now a new fan and potentially a new customer as a result.